Insanity

Oh my holy insanity! So we recently got our hands on the infamous "Insanity" DVDs.

*Blink Blink*

I decided that there was no better day than today to start this awesome program. Ummmm, what the hell was I thinking? Oh that's right. I need to start toning up my body and doing primarily outdoor cardio isn't going to make that happen. Now, a little back story... I SUCK at DVD workouts. Suck. Why? Probably because they are generally lead by some super annoying coach who can take and stick their dumbbell where the sun doesn't shine for all I care. I have NEVER EVER stuck with a DVD program.

So why the heck would I try out this program? Well, because I have several friends who have worked the program and are proof it really does work. So, I guess I decided I needed to up my game. I need to challenge my body as I'm not getting the same sore muscles I had when I first started walking, running and biking. I feed off of that kind of pain...yes, my husband calls me a freak. ;)

So today I started with my first fit test. Let's just say thank goodness the blinds were drawn. I had to modify the Push-Up Jacks because quite frankly I have no upper body strength. I'm lucky I can hold a plank. Another thing I discovered... it doesn't matter how much weight you lose, you have to find a way to tighten that loose skin. Seriously I'm sure it looked like sacks of potatoes flopping around by all the noises coming off of my skin smacking itself. *shudder*

Moving on, sorry about the visual, So today was day 1 and I will have completed the 60 day program on December 1st as long as I stick with it. This means I will now be forcing myself to work out 6 days instead of 5 days a week. After completing the fit test, I must say I'm really diggin this work out. It's such a simple concept, but execution is a little tough for me yet. But I am determined to make it to the end!

New Shoes - Round 2

So, my shoes I purchased on the 24th have been returned. I wore them twice! Both times they caused a blister on the top of my toe, left foot, before I could even hit the two mile mark. That is not going to fly with me. You don't go out and spend $114 on shoes for them to hurt you.

So I took them back and exchanged them for some Brooks. I like them. They seem to have more stability than the Mizuno, but that means they are more rigid. I think the cushioning in the Mizuno's didn't help much after wearing the Brooks. So here, we go with round two... and four days remain until my first race.

And I'm randomly throwing out there my dinner...

Tuna Salad. {Organic Baby Spinach, Romaine, Kale, Green Onion, Cherry Tomato and Tuna. And yes, I used my points on salad dressing.}

Until next post...

To Kill or Not To Kill

That is the question...

I am missing my walking/running. Seriously, jonesing so bad it's annoying the poop out of me. My daughter has decided that she no longer needs naps. Fan-freakin-tastic. Our general routine is we feed the kids, I put the kids down and the hubs goes out for his run/walk. Then we he gets back I go while they're still asleep & he gets ready for bed. Needless to say with her not sleeping it's throwing one heck of a wrench in the routine. I can't, in good conscience, let a 3 year old roam the house while I'm out & the hubs is attempting to get to sleep. 

Let's rewind a few days ago. I brought up to the hubs that I keep tweaking this one muscle in my back and it's almost as annoying as not getting to go out for a walk. I told him I need some exercises to strengthen it and I wouldn't mind toning up the old body. I mean after all, what good is weight loss if you have excess skin and no muscle tone?

So he put together a workout for me. 7 exercises, 3 sets of 8 reps. Well, being that neither child would nap today and I had to do something, I went to the basement and busted through this new work out. I was eventually interrupted by the daughter who was kind enough to attempt to count, out of order, each rep. Well, I'm pleased to say I finished the work out in under 10 minutes. I was surprised how little time it took. BUT, and this is a big but during the second set I got to stationary lunges and BAM I was feeling it. I mean, holy cow it was near impossible to do the third set of lunges. It was hurting so bad, but in that good way.

I started back up the stairs and probably resembled some old granny trying to wobble her way up. I'm going to feel this tomorrow. So, it may have been a short work out, but it was better than sitting on my booty. Now, I may or may not kill my husband tomorrow. It just depends on the level of ouch I'm feeling.

And for the curious, here's what he's set me up with. All of which I'm using a 5 foot barbell, no additional weight added to it's already 14 pounds.

*Bent Over Row

*Upright Row

*Good Morning

*Military Press

*Stationary Lunges

*Thrusters

*Straight Leg Deadlift

Don't worry, I got more exercise than what I just listed. I swiffered, mopped, emptied the dishwasher, reloaded the dishwasher, prepped & cooked lunch for everyone and did 4 loads of laundry, all before noon. I'm still working on laundry and dinner is up next! No rest for a SAHM.

New Shoe Friday!!!!

I love rewards. I really should use a reward system more often, but in all honesty it tends to fall by the wayside. Anywho, this "reward" seems fitting. 

I bought my first pair of "fitness only" shoes for the first time in ages last August during tax free weekend {see my header picture}. Needless to say, they're a year old now and finished. They've reached 300 miles and have no tread left on them at all. I can literally feel the concrete beneath the balls of my feet with each step. Not to mention the lack of stability left in them for my poor arches. 

I'm very excited to strap on these pretty new shoes and hit the pavement! Excited enough to jump for joy. :)

Recouping & Looking Ahead

Yup.... 106º today. I didn't realize it when I started out for my walk turned jog. How's that? I didn't realize it was quite so awful until a block into jogging it because really really difficult to breathe. Then I "realized" man, it's like a furnace blowing out here. I guess 12 mile an hour winds would do that. I wanted to bust out at least four if not five miles. Sadly after jogging and alternating walking the first two miles, and arriving around the two and a half mile mark I started feeling sick to my stomach. So I sauntered on home and finished just three miles. But that's great.

I've been sickly and recovering from an allergy attack since Sunday. But I am determined to keep working out while recouping. It might not be a big deal to some, but for me when a road black such as this would arise in the past I would just give up all together and a few days off would turn into weeks and so forth. Not this time! I am adamant about keeping up with the exercise as long as my body can handle it. ;)

Leg Pain Sucks...But It's Curable!

Sick of my weather updates? Oh well...by the time we left at 8:30pm it cooled down to a whopping 100*.

So you know I'm dealing with some horrid allergies, but suffering through my runs. Today I got to the point that I couldn't even turn the steering wheel due to the pain between my shoulder blades. I made a pit stop at the chiropractors office this afternoon and he is a life saver! Basically he knocked out my headache and sinus pain, allowed my sinuses to drain more freely (sarcastic yay!) and made it so I can now turn my head to the right and do other activities without my shoulder area being in pain. I LOVE CHIROPRACTIC.

Holy Bras of Steel

Did that get your attention? Well, you see I've had several "tools" on my wish list since beginning my journey. Seeing that my hubby knows I'm taking this seriously he's been slowly surprising me with the tools I need to assist me on my journey. One of those in the top priority category are good (great) sports bras.

Quick Update

So I have the bestest husband in the whole wide world!!!! I have me a new BOB. YAY!!!!!!! As soon as we got it I set it up and took the kids for a spin. Now I don't know if it just having a new toy or if it was due to the not-so-heaviness of the BOB, but it seemed like I was flying.

Seriously I hit my first mile in 15 minutes...15 minutes while WALKING. I hit my second mile by 32 minutes. I completed my walk in 52 minutes. That's 17 minute miles. How freaking awesome? I also jogged three times during our walk, which probably helped my time but it was only for 30 seconds or so at a time.

I felt like I was on cloud nine. On my last half mile we walked by three people standing beside a car parked on the street. This lady was smoking a cigarette and there was no avoiding the plume of death. I wasn't even a half a foot past her when Baby Girl hollered out "Pee-eeew, that stinks." I about died on the spot, rolling in laughter. I mumbled to myself that I knew what she meant, then I decided to jog again, just so I could get away from them faster. Ah, kids.

Alrighty, time to turn in. This mornings weight check: 250.2 = awesome.

21 Days | Day 21

Hmmm...what happened to yesterday's entry? Didn't I log it? I thought I did?

Oh wait, I was sitting in front of a toasty fire pit, surrounded by friends, and without electronics. It was an amazing night full of laughter. So, yesterday was great food wise, I even backed away from temptations when my best friend offered me Peanut Butter Chocolate Bugles, and Smores. So I did really good, not to mention I took baby girl on a bike ride and we played at the park.

21 Days | Day 19

I am very proud of myself today...very proud! I snuck a peak at the scale because quite frankly I'm obsessed at this point. And as long as I'm not depressing myself w/ the scale I have no problem's hopping on.

21 Days | Day 18 ~ What Happened?

So, um yeah. I didn't post my food diary for yesterday, but I had good reason. I was asleep. Yes, me, the queen of going to bed at 3am went to bed at NINE last night. Forgive me? Okay.

21 Days | Day 17 *Changes*

I'm still in a bit of a funk...but I'm working on it. Notice anything new on my blog? No? Look to your left. That's right I found a cool search engine widget and added it to the blog. I've tested it and it works, but I haven't fully committed to a search yet. I may do that later or in the morning, but I'm excited to see what it yields.

21 Days | Day 16

Well....I was feeling confident and great about all the weight loss I've been having lately. For some reason today just didn't go my way. I missed my snacks I ate higher calorie meals and not exactly healthy meals at that. I'm trying to be resourceful and using up some of the food in the house, even if it means that it's not 100% healthy. Sometimes I just have to sacrifice my food for the sake of not having enough money to go around. It makes me sad.

21 Days | Day 15

So, as I said in my earlier post, I'm super stoked that I'm now sitting pretty at 260.0. I'm thiiiisssss close to a 20 pound loss. Who wouldn't be excited? I am a little bummed about the weather here though. It was so gorgeous and warm out, I mean seriously near 80 degrees. Three days later we're dealing with snow/ice and fridgid temps. Ugh, it's enough to make anyone depressed. So I haven't gotten out with the kids for a walk or bike ride and that makes me sad. Soon enough I suppose?

And I digress...I follow this YUMMY blog called My Baking Addiction, and lately I've only been drooling over the recipes because quite frankly a lot of what happens on that blog isn't good for me when I'm trying to drop pounds. But I am totally and seriously, 100% thinking of making these. *DROOL* Somone PLEASE talk me out of it? Okay, thanks.

21 Days | Day 14

Busy day. Good Day. Long day.

21 Days | Day 13

Oh my, oh my, oh my!!!! Even though I've had some sucky food days as of late, I'm still counting today as a complete success! That's right, I have to count it as a success after what took place.

21 Days | Day 11

Blah...I don't really have any fantastic stories for today. It was another cold, gloomy day and I didn't roll out of bed until 3pm. Yes, my husband left me to sleep in hopes that I will stay up for over 24 hours and crash at a decent time tomorrow night. He's hoping that will be the push I need to get me back on a regular schedule.

21 Days | Day 10

Today was a ho-hum day. Nothing seemed to go my way. It was cold, gloomy and all-around crappy. I didn't even bother taking the kids out of the house, especially considering the sleep issues as of late. Big Boy is cutting teeth hard and is a sleeping nightmare. Big Girl thinks she can skip naps at the tender age of two. So three hours of fighting resulted in her sleeping until 7pm...that made for a FABULOUS night.

Food-wise I decent. Not wonderful, but it was okay. I did have a *moment* and it's the first one in a looooong time. I sat down with a box of wheat thins stix, with Baby Girl, and I didn't measure them out first. Bad, I know. I so ended up eating two servings. Ugh. Here's the damage...and I'm still hungry.

21 Days | Day 9

Went on a fabulous hour and a half walk with my best friend and our three kids. I pushed the stroller filled with my two and boy was that fun. Pushing them up and down hills all over the neighborhood. That wasn't quite the same workout as pulling them around on the bike, but it was a work out none the less.

21 Days | Day 8

You know what kills me??? Riding my bike for the first time in 3? years, with a bike trailer and over 50 pounds of kids tossed in the back...add to that the one throwing a fit when we left the park who was causing the bike to jerk everywhere and KILLING my quads. (Was that the longest run-on sentence ever?) So, yes, it has been nice enough that I got *brave* enough to take them to the park again. Luckily I decided to go throughout the neighborhood before going by the park so I got a decent work out in, especially considering some of the hills we have.